The Convention Praesidium published a new draft of the first 16 articles of the Constitutional Treaty at the early February Plenary session.
Convention members were invited to comment or amend these articles by the deadline of Monday 17 February. The draft document did not take into account the conclusions of the WG on Social Europe and particularly their references on health.
EPHA sent an alert to members calling for advocacy towards the Convention members to support the inclusion of the Social Europe WG recommendations into the draft Constitutional Treaty.
Many members wrote letters to national Convention representatives and EPHA President Andrew Hayes sent a personalised letter to all members of the Convention Praesidium.
Responses acknowledging this letter were received from Mr Brok MEP, Mr Iñigo Méndez de Vigo MEP and a joint letter from Commissioner Barnier, Commissioner Vitorino and Mr David O’Sullivan.
Senior members of the Convention on the future of the EU have admitted that they face an "enormous" task to draft the European constitution by June and are talking of pushing the deadline back to October.
EPHA Policy Assistant Lara Garrido-Herrero is following the Convention and has sent out to EPHA members briefing notes about the two Plenary sessions in February.
